B2 First grades and scores: how the Cambridge English Scale works

Cambridge does not report your result as a percentage. Instead, every skill gets a score on the Cambridge English Scale. For B2 First, reported scores run from 122 to 190.

You get a scale score for each of the five skills:

• Reading
• Use of English
• Writing
• Listening
• Speaking

Your overall score is the average of these five scores, and each skill counts equally. This is important: Use of English has fewer questions than Reading, but its scale score carries exactly the same weight in the average.

If you want a reminder of what each paper contains, see the FCE exam format.

Your overall score decides your grade and the CEFR level shown on your result:

• 180–190: Grade A, reported at C1 level. You performed above the level of the exam.
• 173–179: Grade B, at B2 level.
• 160–172: Grade C, at B2 level.
• 140–159: Level B1. You did not reach B2, but you still receive a certificate showing B1.
• 122–139: your score is reported, but there is no grade, no CEFR level and no certificate.

Scores below 122 are not reported.

In other words, 160 is the score that matters most for most candidates, because it is the line between a B2 result and a B1 result.

There is no minimum score for each paper. You do not need to “pass” Writing or Listening separately. Only the overall average decides your grade.

Here is an invented example to show how it works. Imagine a candidate with these scale scores:

• Reading 165, Use of English 152, Writing 158, Listening 170, Speaking 175

The total is 820, and 820 ÷ 5 = 164, which is Grade C (B2). Use of English and Writing were below 160, but the stronger skills balanced them out.

The lesson for your preparation: your weakest skill is often your biggest opportunity. Moving one low score up by 10 points raises your overall score by 2 points, and that can be the difference between a B1 and a B2 result.

When you do a practice test, you get raw marks (for example 30 out of 42 in Reading), not a scale score. Cambridge publishes guidance on converting practice-test marks to the scale for each skill, and our FCE score calculator uses those published points to give you an estimate.

Keep two things in mind:

1. It is an estimate. Cambridge says the conversion should not be used to predict precise scores in the real exam.
2. Treat scores near a boundary as uncertain. Cambridge suggests that a result within about 3 points of a grade boundary (for example 157–163) could fall on either side. If your estimate is 161, you are close to the line, not safely above it.

Use estimates to track progress over weeks, not to predict your exact result.